Absinthe
by Serah Villiers
Summary: 'Sweet like sugar, bitter like absinthe. You dilute me into something bearable.' Sephiroth will never understand how she can smile when everything is so...pointless. Bittersweet SephirothxAeris piece.


**Warnings: Spoilers if you haven't completed the game (from about the middle of the game onwards).**

**Pairing: (Slight) Sephiroth x Aeris

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**Absinthe**

_Fast and simple, no pain at all._

I could taste the ghost of your smile as it played on your pale lips. From the first time we met I knew you could sense the evil within me. Yet you smiled and offered me a flower, strange considering you must have known what I would become. What I would do to your friends, to the world…to you.

_No shock in your eyes, as if you had known this day was coming._

The flower has long since withered, but your face haunted me for years. I knew that Black Materia held the power I needed; to summon Meteor. And I knew that there was only one thing that could stop me. The more I researched White Materia, the more your voice haunted me.

_Even if you didn't know, I did._

Your innocence was always exasperating. Your ignorance to the worlds' pain fuelled my hatred for you. How could you not see the stupidity of it all? What was the point in living this way, when it could be changed? You could have helped me change the world, could have stood _with_ me.

_I knew it was coming, and yet I wasn't prepared._

I would have been ruler of this planet with the power Meteor could have given me. It would have been my gift to the planet. Ridding it of the pain and ignorance. You could have helped me, by destroying the White Materia and standing by my side. I would have accepted a true Cetra…I would have accepted you…

_Your blood still taints my sword, no water or spell will ever be able to cleanse it._

Lying here now, I see what you saw in Cloud. He was a worthy adversary but it was too late. Magical energies have mixed, my Meteor and your Holy are entwining and judging the world according to their rules. Who knows what will happen now. Who knows how many will die. Ironically, isn't that what Cloud was trying to prevent? Must be a hollow victory for them…

_But when I look into your eyes, I know all is forgiven._

The Lifestream is spilling over the planet, and I don't have the energy to run. Where would I go anyway? Everything will be judged. Ghostly images of people that have long since left this world walk freely from the Lifestream, standing to be judged alongside the living. And suddenly you're lying next to me, whispering a cure to heal my wounds from the battle. Your eyes hold no pain, no regret and no anger towards me for my actions.

_You're so naïve it sickens me._

Your ignorance of the worlds' pain is pathetic, but when I'm staring into your eyes I find it easier to bear. The emerald light intensifies and the scream of the planet and of the people doomed to die rises through the nights' sky, echoing all around us.

_If this is the last night I have to live, I'd die happy knowing you were with me._

You may be an ignorant fool, but your spell of light probably saved you. I can feel my soul being ripped from my body as we embrace and kiss for the first and final time. Your hot tears drip onto my hands and I realise with disgust that I'm crying too. But for once it doesn't matter, as darkness closes in on my mind I focus on the euphoria of your scent as your body becomes solid as you're granted life.

_I'll take your place in the Lifestream._

Maybe now you can start to feel the pain of the world, and understand why I did what I did. Your tears fall onto my cold body as my soul ascends to the newly formed Lifestream. The cries of the Planet have stopped; the wound is slowly stitching closed. But the cries of its inhabitant's survivors still ring clearly. For some the pain will never heal.

_And maybe now you will know what pain is._

Your tears are bitter, this isn't the first time you've been hurt but now you have nothing. You know what it's like to truly be alone. Maybe there's hope for you after all, maybe you have it in you to be as bitter as I am.

_Sweet like sugar, bitter like absinthe. You dilute me into something bearable._

Or maybe your innocence will prevail. And maybe, that's why I fell for you in the first place, and took your place in death.

**Owari**

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**Please review.**

_Mayoki_

_Completed: 16th July 2006_


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